


Creatures, Dreadful and Divine

by anticyclone



Series: Take A Chance On Me [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, M/M, Noah's Ark, Pre-Relationship, minor appearances from Noah's family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-19 14:49:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20659025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/pseuds/anticyclone
Summary: "Are you here to thwart me?""You're quite suspicious, for an angel." The smile on the demon's face was almost fond.A thousand years past Eden and just after the Flood, Heaven sends Crawly to help Noah's family. Who are still bothered about there being only one unicorn, slightly concerned about the single giant serpent dozing by the lake, and have (blessedly) not noticed a third swan.





	Creatures, Dreadful and Divine

**Author's Note:**

> What I'd meant to be a single sequel has been split up into roleswap adventures through history. Hopefully this installment will prove entertaining. Many thanks to thedeadparrot for betaing and gently taking a cleaver to this where necessary. All remaining mistakes are my own.

** The Mountains of Ararat | 3004 BC **

Half a week had passed since everybody had disembarked. Crawly was supposed to be doing things, but his assignment with Noah's family had come with no deadline and at the moment he was comfortable as he was, curled up on a sturdy tree branch. Green, leaf-filtered sunlight warmed his scales and every time he flicked his tongue he smelled fresh lakewater. If you had absolutely no choice but to restart humanity - or at least the neighborhood - this wasn't a terrible spot to do it.

Grass rustled underneath him. Crawly kept his eyes closed. Over the past thousand years he'd found the humans were much less excitable if he didn't immediately react to their presence. Most didn't seem afraid of him, exactly, but he was approximately their size and an animal that large would make anyone pause.

Also, every person here was sure _they_ hadn't put Crawly on the boat. None of them knew who had done it and he could tell they were trying to figure out how to ask not only 'how did someone get this nine-foot snake on the Ark without me noticing,' but perhaps more importantly, 'where is the other one?'

A hand touched his scales. He held very still while warm fingertips stroked his head. That was a surprise. He didn't think any of the adults would do this and the children weren't tall enough to reach this branch. The hand gently patted him once, twice.

"This is you, isn't it, Crawly? It's going to be awkward if it's not."

Crawly opened yellow eyes. His pupils shrank from the glare of the sun off Aziraphale's hair. "Oh," he said, his tongue flicking out. The demon still smelled of storms. "It'sss you."

"Get down from there," Aziraphale told him.

Crawly moved down the tree trunk and raised himself back up with two arms and two legs, clad in plain white clothing. He left the wings put away. Aziraphale wasn't wearing them. Besides, it was easier to be invisible when you were not also masking wings. He caught Aziraphale eyeing his gold snake mark and pulled up the cowl on his robe like he had meant to do it, anyway.

"Didn't notice the mark last time," Aziraphale said, tapping his temple. "What do you tell the humans?"

Crawly fussed with tucking the cowl around his hair. "They mostly don't notice it."

"And the eyes?"

"What do you tell them about yours?" he countered.

Aziraphale, whose irises were so black as to blend directly into his pupils, very deliberately blinked nictitating membranes and tilted his head to one side. "What about my eyes?"

Crawly felt a strange and uncharitable urge to push him into the lake. He quashed it. "Did you come to bother me specifically or are you here for an actual reason?"

"I heard the waters had receded, thought I'd come give things a look."

A likely story. He shook his head and looked out over the water. The two swans were out in the middle of it, bobbing their heads and rustling their wings. Time passed slightly differently underwater, at least for now, so there were rather more insects than there should have been after half a week. The animals were in no danger of eating each other out of existence. Crawly had made it clear as crystal, on the Ark, that nobody should go around eating each other out of existence.

Past the grassy shoreline was the new settlement. Noah and his family had already erected tents, tables, and workstations. They would need better shelter soon but it was enough for now.

One of the children padded her way past the encampment. Nobody noticed her toddling by, all the way down to the shore. Crawly thought her name was Miriam. She let out a piercing giggle and bounced both of her chubby little fists. One of the swans honked. They both swiveled in the water to peer at her.

A far off sigh, from one of the adults. "Get her away from those things, will you? They're dreadful creatures."

Baby Miriam, wobbling on her feet, pointed the swans and shrieked, "Dove!"

Aziraphale made an affronted noise. Crawly clamped his hands together behind his back and did his best not to smile. (His best was not, as it turned out, effective.)

"Crawly. What have you been teaching these people?"

"She's three. She's been calling all the birds dove," Crawly said. He let his eyes go wide. "I think she got to play with them, on the ark."

In the background Baby Miriam was swept up in her father's arms. "Yes, pretty doves," he said, distractedly, already walking away from the little lake to where the family was camped out. The expression on Aziraphale's face was so wonderful that Crawly just stared at him, trying to memorize it. He needed something funny to think about on these empty no-longer-desert nights.

"Shouldn't you correct her?" Aziraphale asked. "Aren't the animals your purview?"

And there it was. Crawly felt the bubble of laughter inside him pop. He looked back at the lake, at the two swans, and the ripples under the water where freshwater fish swam. "The animals aren't really mine anymore."

Aziraphale regarded him. "That sword business, was it?"

"The Almighty has never actually pressed me on that. I think maybe She had more important concerns."

Also, he had done a rather thorough cataloging of Adam and Eve's descendents and had absolutely no idea who had the sword now. So he really didn't want to be asked about it again. Carefully, coincidentally leaving the sword unattended on that rock had seemed like a good idea at the time. The ineffable plan couldn't have been for the first two humans out in the world to immediately get eaten by a lion. But it had been a thousand years, and he didn't know what Head Office would say if they found out now.

"If you say so."

"This isn't my planet, Aziraphale. The animals are theirs." He nodded over at where Noah's family was beginning to make lunch.

"Yes, and they seem to be doing a fantastic job of it. I noticed there's only one unicorn."

He grimaced. "I wasn't supposed to intervene."

Aziraphale's eyebrows went up. "You mean help?"

"I mean meddle." He watched a dragonfly land on the water. It was going to get eaten, if it wasn't careful. Now that there was plenty of land, there were plenty of animals. Crawly couldn't stop anybody from getting eaten now.

"I don't think angels can meddle."

Crawly thought back to slightly over two months ago and struggled to keep it off his face. He must not have, because Aziraphale looked away. It was a little ridiculous, an angel and a demon for all of a whole dozen human beings.

"This world is theirs," Crawly said. His hands tightened behind his back. "Some people did leave."

Aziraphale tipped his head to the side. Crawly had been around the globe, he had met a lot of people, he had seen Archangels as they Smote Things. Aziraphale would give any of them a run for their money when it came to dripping disdain. "I met some of them on their way out. Didn't seem as if they sent the children or the ill ahead or anything."

"Some people left," Crawly repeated. "And look, Noah's family is all here."

"Mmm. Children and people too sick to walk? That's the kind of thing I might be asked to do," Aziraphale said.

Crawly frowned, confused. "Are you … jealous?"

"No, no. It's inelegant, that's all I'm saying. You might expect more from upstairs."

He gestured angrily at the little group of tents. "It's-"

"If you say ineffable," Aziraphale started.

"Humanity is still here," he interrupted. "And it was - the rest of the world was fine. It was this corner that-" He stopped himself, gestured at the sky instead, which they couldn't see much of through the canopy of trees. "You saw the rainbow. Must have."

It really had felt like a miracle, looking at it from a corner of the boat where nobody else had been standing. Almost enough to make an angel want to pop into Heaven again. Just for a minute. Except it was still pretty empty there, too. Head Office was really leaning into the aesthetic of the thing, post-Fall, half the host of angels all gone.

Aziraphale cleared his throat and changed the topic without any effort to hide what he was doing. "What _are_ you up to here, anyway, if it's all over?"

His shoulders tensed. He'd heard reports from other Earth agents. Sometimes Head Office sent them, when they were geographically relevant. Demons did roam this earth. More than just the one next to him. Evil was abroad, generally speaking. 

"Why?" he asked. "Are you here to thwart me?"

"You're quite suspicious, for an angel." The smile on the demon's face was almost fond.

On the lake, the water rippled. The dragonfly's wings beat once but the water broke underneath it before it could lift off. There was a brief flash of fish lips and then the water was smooth again.

"Suspicious of you," Crawly grumbled.

"I suppose that's reasonable."

"Are you going to tell me why _you're_ really here?"

"Information for information, dear."

_Dear?_

"Oh," Aziraphale said, his smile broadening. "I think when you get interested in something, your pupils dilate. Isn't that neat. Are you sure the humans never notice that, Crawly?"

Crawly bristled. If he'd had scales, he would have bared his fangs. If his wings had been out, they would have fluttered threateningly. One of the swans honked and they both paddled away across the lake.

Innocent curiosity on his face, Aziraphale leaned forward, so Crawly had to lean back to keep their shoulders from brushing. "I must be very interesting," he said. "Your eyes are nearly all black now."

"I am leaving," Crawly announced, taking a large step back.

Aziraphale didn't move, not even when Crawly melted back into snake form and moved toward the water. He wasn't an aquatic shape but he could sink down into the lake bottom for a bit, where nobody could bother him.

It was unfortunate but it looked like he would have to stick around Noah and his family even longer than he'd intended. He'd only been meant to help get them settled and point out some plants and animals particularly well-suited to the area, for cultivation. But who knew what the demon would get up to if he left after that?

"Goodbye, Crawly," Aziraphale called. "I'm sure our paths will cross again."

Fiend. That's what he was, a fiend. Two could play at that game.

"Sssee you later, dove," Crawly said. He slithered into the water before Aziraphale could do more than sputter.

***

Eventually Crawly did have to come out of the lake. At some point he needed to do the work he'd been sent here to do. Head Office would check in soon and he needed to have something to tell them. He thought he could always say that he'd been keeping an eye on Aziraphale, but when he looked around the lake he saw no sign of the demon.

No extra swans, either.

The lake water was all from the Flood and accordingly raincloud cold, so it took some effort to get himself up the shore. He aimed for a flat slab of granite. It had been baking in the sun all day and he could dry off there. Make a plan.

Baby Miriam sat playing in the dirt between him and the rock. At the sight of him she stood up on her chubby little legs, squealed, and tried to take a step toward him, slipping on the mud.

The damp sand on the shore was difficult to slither across but he did make it before Miriam hit the water. Her feet hit his scales instead of the lake. She shrieked again and clambered on top of him. He considered shaking her off, but she probably couldn't walk up the slick shore on her own.

The warm granite rock was the opposite direction of Noah's family's homestead. Well. It wasn't as if he could've avoided them forever.

"You really ssshould be more careful," he said, because three-year-olds were weird. No one would believe her, and maybe a snake would be more fun to listen to than her parents.

Miriam poked at his scales. "Snake!"

He stopped by the far end of the homestead to let her off. She giggled and patted him again. He drew up and turned backward on himself.

"You have to go home." He jerked his head toward the tents.

Miriam's eyes were huge. She reached up and put both her tiny hands on his nose.

Crawly gave in and sighed. His tongue flicked her hands, and she giggled, bouncing. The movement tipped her off into the soft grass below. She lay on her back for a moment, blinking and staring at him with an open mouth.

"Tell someone to teach you to ssswim," he ordered, and disappeared into the grass.

***

Three days later Crawly coincidentally ran into Shem in the desert, told him that his name was a suitably foreign Cra'lee, and offered to tell him what had grown well here before the Flood. Enough sheepishness about having fled the storm and enough willingness to adapt himself to their routine and no one much minded his appearance.

Also, Shem was still upset about the unicorn, which helped.

"I did double check the knots," he muttered, the third time he'd told Crawly this story. Everyone else had gotten so sick of this story on the Ark that he'd been banned from talking about it with his family.

"You make good knots," Crawly said.

"I do!" Shem grumbled and put his hands in his lap. "None of the other animals under my watch got away."

"Ahh, unicorns are hard to manage." Crawly had accidentally ended up in a corner with the remaining one on the Ark. It hadn't seemed to entirely notice that the other one wasn't there with it. It had mostly wanted to eat all the hay and kept getting its horn stuck in the walls.

He did feel bad there wouldn't be any more. But he'd also gotten a horn straight to the scales once trying to help it out, so not that bad.

"They're all out there, now," Shem said, gesturing at the lake and the hills beyond it. Crawly was to understand that he meant the whole of the world. He stared at the water for a minute, then put his elbows on his knees.

Crawly looked out at the water, too. The swans were still here. A lot of the other birds had started to leave and he suspected the swans would too, shortly. He kept looking at them waiting to see the shape of a third. It hadn't happened yet. He was starting to get a little paranoid about where Aziraphale gotten himself to. As far as he knew, demons couldn't make themselves invisible to angels, but the only one to ask would be … Aziraphale.

So.

"You said there are still people out there," Shem said, after a bit. He glanced sideways at Crawly. "Why didn't any of them come with you?"

Crawly looked up at the sky. "It was a long walk."

"You did it."

"Guess I'm just curious." He looked back down and cringed. "Miriam's heading to the lake again."

Rising to his feet, Shem groaned. He brushed his robes off and gestured for Crawly to follow him. Miriam stopped when Shem called to her, but she didn't come toward them or turn back toward the tents. "She keeps trying to find the Serpent."

Crawly felt his tongue fork in his mouth and forced it back into shape before he parted his lips to ask, "What?"

"That's what we've taken to calling it. When we got off the Ark, there was this enormous snake," Shem held his hands apart to demonstrate, although it felt short, "and _I_ definitely didn't put it on. Also, there was only one of it."

They moved from grass to shoreline and Shem scooped Miriam up with both arms. She whined and wriggled until he kissed the top of her head and started bouncing her up and down. The lake rippled. An evening wind was heading in.

"How… suspicious," Crawly forced himself to say. It would definitely be suspicious to glare at a three-year-old, so he didn't. Maybe he should've told her he was a secret friend.

Shem shrugged. "Miriam said the Serpent pulled her out of the lake. We're pretty sure it was an angel."

Crawly tripped.

"Oh!" Shem struggled to shift Miriam to the crook of one arm and reached out for him. "Are you okay? Ugh, that's going to bruise."

He'd caught himself with his palms and they stung. The skin was scraped when he got onto his knees and looked down at them. But it wasn't until Shem touched his forehead that he realized he'd also bumped his head on his way down, and from the feel of it, it definitely would bruise.

"M'fine," he said, gingerly getting to his feet.

Miriam pointed at him. "'Alee got yellow eyes!"

Crawly was pretty sure he was about to have the shortest career an angel could have. Divine manifestations were not in his job description, and Noah's family was absolutely not scheduled to have one now. What was he going to tell Gabriel? Oh, he'd been with the humans for less than a week and a toddler had revealed him to everybody.

"Brown eyes, sweetie, Cra'lee has brown eyes," Shem said. He shook his head. "Kids. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Ye...p," Crawly said, and did not hiss in relief.

***

"What," Aziraphale asked, audibly baffled, "can you possibly be doing?"

"Helping dig irrigation trenches." Crawly paused and looked behind him. "Where have you been?"

Aziraphale wiggled his fingers. "Here and there."

Crawly rolled his eyes and went back to digging. He had been working for about an hour and had discarded his outer robe about thirty minutes ago, so the sun beat down on his bare chest and shoulders. It was punishing today. He was covered in sweat and actually looking forward to sinking into the chilly lake later. But that was later. Now, he had to get to the end of this row.

It hadn't rained since the Flood and was probably not going to rain any time soon, hence the trenches. The soil was rich and damp now, sure. Later into the growing season it wouldn't be, and by then Crawly would be gone and not able to help. He didn't have much time before he needed to get out. Head Office needed its report, and he needed to not get too attached to Noah's family.

Getting a little sweaty and developing calluses on his hands was the least that he could do before he left.

A couple of feet later Crawly looked back again. Aziraphale was still standing there, hands clasped in front of himself, black eyes tracking Crawly's shovel as it moved dirt around.

"You could help," he suggested. "There are extra tools."

"Hmm?" Aziraphale blinked, with normal eyelids, and glanced up.

"You're staring," Crawly said, his voice in a stage whisper. "If it's so interesting, you could help."

There was no one in earshot and he was sure Aziraphale was invisible to everybody else - except maybe Miriam, who was not old enough to be interested in farming duty.

Aziraphale blinked again. Then he smiled. "Not very demonic."

"I don't know if farming is particularly angelic, either. Morally neutral, farming." Crawly hit a rock and threw his head back, sighing. It would be cheating to miracle the rock away. He shut his eyes for half a second. The sun did feel good on his face.

"I don't know," Aziraphale murmured. "It's certainly something."

"I don't understand half of what you say," Crawly said. He bent down and started working the rock out of the soil. "Are you here to check in on me, or what? I haven't noticed any evil activity in the area."

It had been a few weeks since he'd introduced himself to Shem and the rest, and although there had been squabbles, they'd been extremely human arguments. The kind you would have after being cooped up with no one but family and animals - and Crawly, awkwardly shuffling on the sidelines. Not the kind he could contribute to demonic meddling.

Aziraphale meandered over to look down at the soil. He watched Crawly push the shovel underneath the rock and shove his weight into it to lever the rock up. "You could just miracle all of this done for you, you know. You could make the humans not notice."

"Could," Crawly said. "Wouldn't be the same."

"I think there would be a hole in the ground regardless," Aziraphale reasoned.

Crawly snorted. "There's a difference," he said, moving onto the next patch, "between Heavenly intervention, and lending a hand."

"Heavenly intervention being flaming swords and miracles."

"Mmm." Once he got into a rhythm for shoveling, it really wasn't that bad. And every foot of soil moved got him a foot closer to the lake. 

The difference between intervention and assistance might be measured in something like coincidence. It was one thing to deliberately hand a sword to Adam - Heavenly gifts not being his department - and an entirely different thing if he stopped paying attention long enough for Adam to grab the sword himself. Not Crawly's fault, in that case. And he'd keep thinking that until someone asked him about it.

Aziraphale watched him for a while and then walked up the trench to his side. "Crawly," he said, "what are you going to do when I do get around to doing something evil?"

He dug for another minute. He maybe did miracle a rock out of his way. Which was cheating, but Crawly thought he deserved a cheat for actually putting up with a demon. Anybody else would've just smited him by now. Smote?

He sighed and stopped, because if he was debating grammar with himself, it was time for a break. He put the shovel in the dirt and lifted the water skin tied around his waist to his mouth. It was lake water, clear and cool and clean, and some of it spilled from his mouth down his chin to drip on his chest. He wrinkled his nose and flicked it away. The whole time, Aziraphale simply stared.

"Guess I could hit you with a shovel," Crawly reasoned.

Aziraphale grinned at him. He looked far too happy. It was the same Morningstar-light smile he'd given Crawly on the wall of Eden, when Crawly had implied he still had possession of a sword, and Crawly was slightly shocked to find it still made him want to stagger.

"Would you really?" the demon asked.

Crawly grabbed the shovel again. He didn't need that long of a break. And if he was shoveling, he had to look at the dirt, and not Aziraphale's black eyes, tracking him. He chose his words carefully. Crawly hadn't had a lot of encounters with demons, but from the reports that had been sent his way he knew that they didn't typically involve casual conversation.

"If you deserved it, maybe," he said. "What evil things are you planning on doing?"

Aziraphale replied, nonchalantly, "Foiling angelic works." He smiled again when Crawly stopped to look at him. "Don't you think it's going well?"

Crawly tilted his head. His braid slipped against his neck, and Aziraphale's eyes moved with it. Crawly felt momentarily like a bug before a swan. He gripped the shovel with both hands and pushed it back into the dirt. "You're going to fill the trench in tonight, is that what you're telling me?"

"Please, no. Can you picture me doing all that with a shovel?" Aziraphale tutted. Crawly refrained from pointing out that he could just miracle the trench full. "You just informed me that you're not planning on assisting this family with divine intervention. I would consider that an angelic work thoroughly foiled."

"...Does that actually _work?"_

Crawly could not imagine a demon accepting that explanation at face value, which was why he'd been so relieved no one had ever asked about the sword. He didn't think he'd be able to get that kind of thing past Gabriel. But he realized that Aziraphale was one of the few demons he'd ever met. Certainly the only one he'd ever spoken with, aside from trading rote insults. What did Crawly know of Hell?

"Remarkably, yes."

"Don't think I'll be that easy to fool, dove," Crawly drawled.

Aziraphale grimaced. "Are you going to keep using that?"

"If it keeps annoying you, yes."

Aziraphale rolled his eyes and didn't say anything else. Crawly kept digging. Part of him was wondering if the demon would follow him all the way into the lake. It would be hard to keep up a conversation with an invisible being if the humans were in earshot.

It ended up not mattering. When he finally reached the end of the row, he turned and looked up, but Aziraphale was gone.

Crawly left a week later. He did not include his last conversation with Aziraphale in his report. If Gabriel had any questions, he didn't send them down.


End file.
